Complete Short Works of George Meredith

gh. Apparently I am doomed to hear it at my own

ante all your days, and you might as fairly hope to reap a moral harvest as if you had chased butterflie

Rochefoucauld, or of Vauvenargues. But, it is true that I am f

this development is to be accomplished by

ke bridal bells in a man's ears. I have my books about me, my horses, my dogs, a contented household. I move

myself. Some woman will be suspecting and tattling, because she has nothing else to do. Girls have wonderfully

ed to toil, become subjected to the moral ideal. Most of them in the end sit down with our sixth Henry or second Richard and philosophise on shepherds. To be no better than a simple hind! Am I be

tering Parliament, before I had half formed the d

not confide to her your plans as soon as you can conceive them. She mu

g me to promote sundry measures connected with schools and clerical stipends, for his eyes dilated; he said: 'Well, if you do, I can put you up to several things,' and imparting the usual chorus of yesses to his own

another opinion. She did me

re you serio

Is it not my c

the idea come suddenly upon you

d at what was

oking at A

e young

ooked

arly pertinacious fly, and came

h vaudevilliste's doctrine of great events from little causes. The slipper of a soubrette trips the heart of a king and chang

king either to crush or conceal them, and you are doubly betrayed-betrayed to the besieging eye and to yourself. When a sentiment has grown to be a passion (mercifully may I be spared!) different tactics are required. By that time, you will have already betrayed yourself too deeply to dare to be flippant: the investigating eye is aware that it has been purposely diverted: knowing some things, it makes sure of the rest from which you turn it away. If you want to hide a very grave c

ll possible that a pin's point has got throu

nviction that I am as considerate an

bserving those two. It seems to me the

speak to you about t

he laughs rather vacantly, don't you think? but the sound of it has the proper wholesome ring. I will give her

The hostess was summoned to welcome a new guest, and she left me, plea

ch for me. She can beat me seven games out of twelve at chess; but the five I win sequently, for then I am awake. There is natural art and artificial art, and the last beats the first. Fortunately

t the mastery-it is unlikely to make me the master. What may happen is, that the nature of the girl will declare itself, under the hard light of intimacy, vulgar. Charles I cause to be absent for six weeks; so there will be time

ed, underbred-it is not too harsh to say so-underbred slightly; half-educated, whether quickwitted I dare not opine. She is undoubtedly the last whom I or another person would have fixed upon as one to work me this unmitigated evil. I do not know her, and I believe I do not care to know her, and I am thirsting for the hour to come when I shall study her. Is not this to have the poison of a bite in one's blood? The wrath of Venus is not a fable. I was a hard reader and I despised the sex in my youth, before the family estates fell to me; since when I have playfully admired the sex; I have dallied with a passion, and not read at all, save for diversion: her anger is not a fable. You may interpret many a mythic tale by the facts which lie in your own blood. My em